Change The Ways
by SayWhaaat
Summary: There are some things about Santana and Rachel that are just for certain. But, oh, how people can change. Every change has its story. Starts in high school (end of Season 1/ start of Season 2) but finishes beyond. Some canon things but mostly AU. T for language. Two parts.
1. Change the Ways Part 1

**Change The Ways**

Part One

* * *

_Santana doesn't do mornings._

She would literally outlaw them if she ever got into a position of power. Her parents know not to bother her before 9am (eleven on weekends) unless it's something super important, because they otherwise wouldn't get more than a grunt or maybe extremely snarky comment in reply.

Of all the things she can't stand about being on the Cheerios, this is probably her biggest peeve. With just twenty minutes before Quinn is due to pick her up for practise, Santana finally emerges from her bed and makes her way towards the bathroom. The shower does little to combat the effects of being awake so damn early (curse Figgins to hell for letting Sue blackmail him into allowing her to open McKinley at 5:30 am just for cheerios practise) and Santana barely has time to double check her hair and grab a bottle of water from her fridge before she hears the car honking outside.

"_You fucking honk at me once more, Fabray, and I'm going to string you up Saw III style."_

"_Good morning to you too, Santana."_

Practise is absolute hell. People who aren't even on the squad know this because Santana is being extra bitchy this morning. She actually snapped at Berry so harshly just for wearing an animal sweater that she actually left her speechless. Ordering one of the freshmen jocks to slushy some of the AV kids later on cheers her up a little, but for the most part she just keeps her best bitch-glare in place and doesn't let anyone except Brittany, Quinn and Sue address her directly for the rest of the day.

And God bless Brittany, who understands that Santana is only in a bad mood because Sue picked Quinn to lead warm-ups instead of her, and slips her a note in last period describing exactly what she's going to be doing later – or more specifically, _how_ she's going to be doing _her _later. That put a smile on Santana's face, and by the time she was jumping out of her black Mazda M3, barely taking the time to look back and lock it before bursting into her house, dragging Brittany behind her and up the stairs, she's positively beaming.

The glare is firmly back in place by five-thirty the next morning.

* * *

_Rachel spends her lunchtimes in the choir room._

And usually her mornings, just before school starts. But she gets more time in there at lunch.

Unless there's a particularly interesting glee assignment (and Rachel has to admit, those aren't exactly Mr. Schuester's forté) there's rarely ever anyone else in there. Even Brad the piano man has somewhere better to spend his lunch hour. She can sit and think, eat her lunch, practise singing, work on some choreography, whatever she feels like. But usually singing. She avoids the cafeteria as much as possible – if she can take a slushy to the face when she's standing in a hallway and get eggs in her hair when standing in a parking lot, she dreads to think about what the student body could arm themselves with in a room designed specifically for the consumption of food. The choir room is kind of a safe haven, since most jocks or popular kids wouldn't be seen dead walking in there by choice.

Besides, it's not as if she actually has friends she can go and sit with, or rely on to stick up for her. The students in Glee club are the closest thing she's found to them, but even they don't hesitate to point out the difference between 'friends' and 'team mates' whenever necessary.

"_It's not that we don't like you-"_

"_Actually, it is. Sorry Rach."_

They don't even pretend to like her - in fact, just the other day Santana tried to stop Rachel from performing her solo by flushing her sheet music down the toilet in the girls bathroom (right before Brittany showed up and made her apologise).

Rachel's sure that one day she will find friends, but probably not before leaving this town. So she spends her lunchtimes alone putting in extra practise so that she can be the best. The best she can be, but also the best the world has ever seen. She's kind of sick of being nothing but she knows that her time will come and her dream of being the greatest star on Broadway is well within her grasp as long as she puts in the legwork. She'll practise at lunchtime, and then she'll go to Glee club and practise some more, and then she'll get home and practise all evening.

She'll go to sleep and dream of her opening night as Maria, or Elphaba, or Fanny Brice; of the standing ovation with roses being thrown onto the stage; of the reviews speaking only of her fantastic voice.

But for now, she'll spend her lunchtimes alone.

* * *

_The world will have succumbed to an apocalypse before Santana Lopez takes a slushy to the face_.

Being on the cheerios is like a shield, and even if she is in glee the jocks know that she, Britt and Quinn are off-limits for slushy facials. She doesn't think anyone would dare slushy her anyways, because she's kind of bad-ass.

Her eyes drift from her reflection in her locker door mirror to the scene unfolding 5 feet across the corridor. It happens so quickly that if she hadn't been paying sadistically close attention, she totally would've missed getting to watch Rachel Berry get slapped in the face with a blue big-gulp. She watches her glee teammate freeze to the spot as everyone who lay witness to the incident knock themselves out with pointing and laughing. She almost giggles to herself as she sees the diva almost slip over trying to make her way quickly to the nearest bathroom. Brittany (God bless Brittany) follows her – ever since they joined Glee Brittany hasn't had a bad word to say about any of the glee kids. Brittany actually tried to get the jocks to stop the slushies on the gleeks completely, but only managed to haggle it down to 'just Rachel', so she tries to help her out when they do slushy her.

"_It's only fair, San, since I couldn't stop them from getting her."_

If Santana thinks too long about how good a person Brittany is, it makes her feel a little nauseous, because Santana secretly doesn't understand why someone with Brittany's heart of gold would want to spend so much time with someone as toxic as Santana, and the idea that Brittany may one day ask herself the same question and not find a good enough answer makes Santana's heart stop for a second.

So rather than linger on it, she just tries to be a better person. Or just tries to not be such a bad one, which is why she didn't openly laugh her ass off at Berry getting slushied. And is definitely the only reason she stops by Rachel's open locker to grab the spare top she knows she keeps in there on her way to the bathroom to find Brittany.

* * *

_Rachel's quite used to walking home alone by now._

As good a driver as she is (and of course, she is brilliant – a common side effect of the effort she puts in to excelling in anything she tries her hand at), she doesn't drive her car to school because after seeing their only daughter arrive home in various states of distress (and -wait, is that slushy?), Leroy and Hiram Berry didn't want to risk any damage to Rachel's new car at the hands of her tormentors, so she has to leave it home during the day.

Rachel doesn't really mind. She's found a short cut that makes her journey five minutes shorter and takes her through a field rather than along the sidewalk so she can also avoid some of the heckling she occasionally receives from jocks driving past with nothing better to waste their energy on.

She's on the pavement walking back from Glee in the rain when she hears another car approaching from behind. She pays it little mind until she realises it's slowing down. She starts to turn around for it just to speed up and drive past her.

Watching the back of the black Mazda M3 speed away, she only pays it a little mind, and keeps walking. By the time she gets home her clothes are soaked through. She walks into the kitchen as her dad greets her.

"_Hey sweetie, have you seen this weather? It's supposed to be like this for the next couple of days."_

At least the next day she remembers her umbrella.

* * *

_Santana's pretty sure that crying is for losers and people who give a shit._

She doesn't really fall into either category. When Brittany (fucking Brittany) starts dating some wheelchair kid – who's on the football team now which apparently makes it okay - Santana doesn't feel like a loser, just kind of numb and maybe incredibly angry. She nearly gives a shit – she comes super close to caring that her best friend and favourite fuck buddy who she's definitely not in love with at all is now screwing someone else and trying out monogamy - but then she finds a bottle of vodka in her underwear draw that she remembers stealing from Puck at some point and it's problem solved.

She drinks too much to remember drunk dialling Rachel – who's number she didn't even know she had - in tears expressing exactly how much of a shit she gives, and Rachel doesn't have the balls – or the heart – to remind her of it. She really _really_ doesn't remember calling Rachel 'hot' several times over, telling her where her mind goes whenever she sees Rachel in one of those fantastically short skirts, and attempting to sound sexy whilst sobbing pathetically.

"_God Hobbit, I could take you up against the piano and...we did that once, you know...me and Britt...I miss her so much..."_

She has absolutely no recollection of asking Rachel to sing to her, and letting the girl's voice soothe her over the phone while she cried herself to sleep. She can't really help being a weepy hysterical drunk, but she can help being a weepy hysterical sober and that's why when she wakes up the next day, gets to school and sees Brittany and the cripple wheeling around practically everywhere she goes (like really, were they following her?) she skips the rest of her day and goes home, breaks open her father's liquor cabinet and helps herself.

If she's drunk, the crying – or the answerphone message Berry's going to find later - doesn't count, right?

* * *

_Rachel loves it when Finn smiles at her._

When he sends her this dopey little half smile at tends to light up her entire world. She wonders if a more perfect leading man exists in the world, but she really doesn't think so. Unfortunately, hers is currently tied at the hip to Quinn Fabray, and Rachel's had enough showdowns with the girl to know not to mess with that – at least not overtly.

He walks past her locker just before first period one day and shoots her that smile, and she sends her best beam right back. It drops pretty quickly when she realises Quinn is stood across the hall glaring at her while she waits for Santana to get something from her locker. She turns away just as Quinn leans into her fellow cheerio and starts whispering fiercely about something, and Rachel knows better than to assume it isn't about her.

She walks into the ladies rest room at the start of lunch to overhear a voice she recognises right away to be Santana telling someone that-

"_I'm not doing it Q. Find someone else. I just think she-I've got better things to do."_

Rachel slips out before she gets to hear what 'it' is but right before her afternoon lessons one of the lesser cheerios gets her with a slushy and Rachel runs into the bathroom. She's leaning over the sink with the tap running so she_ almost _doesn't hear the door open, or notice the white tennis shoe on the end of a smooth tanned leg in her peripheral vision – it only stays for a second before turning back around and closing the door behind them.

Finn smiles at her the next morning. She loves it when he does that, but she knows better than to smile back.

* * *

_Santana doesn't take Glee assignments seriously._

What's the point. Every time she did prepare one, she never got the chance to perform it – Rachel or Mercedes or Kurt usually found some way to create diva drama that got in the way and distracted everyone. So Santana's figured out that if she ever does get called on to perform, she'll just wing it. She has an Amy Winehouse number or two up her sleeve should the situation arise.

She becomes increasingly frustrated when it doesn't. It's not like Rachel is the only person in the club that can sing. Though secretly she knows that Rachel is the best. She's always thought the diva was just playing up her skills, but when she walks in the choir room in a terrible mood looking for her kit bag and hears Rachel rocking some song from RENT acapella, she feels instantly calmer and realises that Rachel had a point – she is a star. Not that Santana would admit it.

"_I'm not saying I enjoy hearing her sing, but the judges at sectionals seem to and while we can all only hope that it's because they're slightly deaf and not because they're just deeply masochistic, the fact that Rachel's voice sounds like a dial-up modem that hasn't finished connecting yet will probably work in our favour. I vote we give her the solo."_

Santana takes her glee assignments even less seriously now. She can't figure out if it's in spite of or because of the fact that the less time she spends performing, the more time Rachel probably will.

* * *

_Driving safely is one of Rachel's biggest priorities when sat behind the wheel._

When her daddies bought her the car they reminded her that if she got so much as a speeding ticket they would take it back, and then she'd have to find another way to get around town and to and from her performance lessons or coffee dates with Kurt. So she drives like she wrote the highway code and stopped getting so shaken up by other drivers who didn't like it.

One day when it's raining she's driving back from the grocery store and spots Santana going for a run – or just walking along in running gear which Rachel would consider foolish given the weather, so she does what any good team mate would do and pulls up beside her to offer her a ride (she also does what any good loser would do and keep the car running so she can pull away from the imminent refusal at the hands of one of the school's most popular girls efficiently). When Santana pulls the door open Rachel just assumes she hasn't realised who's driving. Maybe her vision is blurry from the rain, or one of the cheerios has the same car as her or-

"_Thanks Berry."_

She's both appalled and impressed by Santana's passenger seat road rage. The fact that Santana chose to criticise the other drivers on the road – seriously, _all of them_ – instead of Rachel for following the rules kind of sticks with her.

* * *

_Santana just doesn't answer to people's parents. _

Hell, she doesn't even answer to her own. She kind of answers to Brittany's parents, but only in a 'I-don't-know-how-you'd-react-to-the-knowledge-that-I'm-banging-your-daughter-so-I'll-play-nice' kind of way. Not that she has to play that card any more. She wonders briefly if Mr and Mrs Pierce like Artie more than they liked her.

She doesn't really show manners where her own parents are concerned. So her parents don't know how to react to the astounding eloquence Rachel greets them with when she swings by bright and early on Sunday morning to drop off the jacket Santana had left in her car.

Her parents call up to her. It's only eight a.m. and had she not been awoken by the doorbell she'd still be getting her snooze on, but her parents call up to her and tell her Rachel from glee club's here, and Santana tries to just roll over and go back to sleep but then amongst the murmurs coming from downstairs she hears this sound that brings an involuntary smile to her sleepy face, so she rolls out of bed, slips on some sweatpants and greets Rachel in the hallway.

Her parents smirk at her slightly as they leave the two girls alone to go to the kitchen and after brief but un-awkward small talk Berry makes her excuses. They were so busy talking that Rachel almost forgets why she came.

"_My jacket, Berry."_

"_Oh, right, yes, of course. Sorry."_

She blushes slightly and makes that sound again, the one that reminds Santana why she got out of bed at all. She laughs. And then she's gone, the smile Santana's unknowingly kept in place for the last five minutes drops, and Santana's parents are giving her some weird smug knowing glare and asking what happened to Brittany. Santana doesn't answer.

* * *

_Rachel knows what it feels like to be in love._

The joy and giddiness and slight tinge of nerves when she thinks about him too much. Every time she sees Finn walking down the corridor she could swear everything goes into slow motion, the cheesy love songs pound through her head, her heart skips a beat, everything dulls in comparison to him. And seeing him brightens her day. Nothing makes her happier than the thought of being with Finn, and that's how she knows she's in love.

Her theory of love is supported by seeing Mike and Tina act the same way she feels like behaving whenever Finn is around. He hasn't dumped Quinn yet – _yet, _but he will because they spend a lot of time just looking unhappy with each other and they're definitely not in love - so Rachel knows better than to show it, but she gets it. Kurt and Blaine too are in love, because they're always brimming with delight and looking at each other like they were born to be together. Brittany and Artie have a similar approach to being in love; they're all smiles and giggles and special moments, so Rachel assumes they too must be in love.

She sometimes thinks about how Santana's almost perpetually angry (doing so gives Rachel a tiny pang in her stomach - which she assumes to be fear molded from years of slushies and verbal abuse), and figures that it's because she doesn't have love, even though Santana said she was in love when she tearfully drunk dialled Rachel-

"_Love fucking hurts, Berry. Why won't it stop? Why can't I just fucking turn it off?"_

-but Rachel knows she's wrong – if Santana had really been in love then she wouldn't be so gloomy all the time at school.

Because love is the best, happiest, most perfect feeling in the world, Rachel knows.

* * *

_Being the little spoon is kind of Santana's thing._

Ever since Brittany first slept over, before they even started high school, Santana's never known any other way. When she started sleeping with guys she never really got into the snuggling part. Afterwards they'd usually just fall asleep and she'd make her own way home (Puck tried to spoon her once but it just felt kinda wrong and suffocating so she slipped out after he started snoring) or she'd kick them out if it happened at her place, but after her and Brittany hooked up she stopped letting them come over. She'd have sex with them pretty much anywhere else (and boy, does she have some stories to tell) but not in _her_ bed. That's her and Brittany's spot. Or it _was_.

In her first sleepover with Brittany they didn't even mean to cuddle, but at some point in the night while she was asleep Brittany rolled over and slipped her arm around Santana's waist and that was that. But they didn't do it on purpose until one night in their freshmen year when Santana called Brittany in tears after her first time sleeping with a guy – some jock senior, she can't even remember his face - and asked her to come over. And Brittany held her while she cried herself to sleep. And that was_ that._

"_It's okay San...shhh...it's okay...I'm here."_

Of course, things have changed. Brittany can't make it when Mercedes invites the glee girls over for a sleepover to bond, so Rachel gets her invite and uses every ounce of dignity she possesses to overlook the fact that she was a last resort.

Santana wakes up on Mercedes' bedroom floor at 3am with her arm around Rachel's waist. She leaves it there and goes back to sleep. She wakes up alone seven hours later.

* * *

_Rachel's going to wait until the age of 25 before she maybe has sex. Maybe._

She's got her whole life planned out and that seems like the optimum time to do it – she'll have won her first Tony award and her and Finn will be happily married and living in New York, so that'll be the perfect time to start a family. She does believe that girls want sex just as much as guys do, but honestly, it's all about the right moment for her, and she's willing to be patient before letting anyone make love to her for the first time, just to make sure it's perfect. She's willing to wait for the right time however long it lakes, and with Finn the right time should be in about 8 years.

She remembers almost going through with it with Jesse – in hindsight he was definitely pressuring her.

"_All the other girls are doing it, Rachel, come on. I need to know you love me. This is just the easiest way to show it."_

She knows that if Jesse really loved her he would have been willing to wait for as long as her life plan instructed. Finn is sweet, though, and he'll definitely wait for her.

Except she finds out that he didn't. Santana somehow got there first. He hadn't even got that far with Quinn, Rachel was sure, but for some reason he gave his virginity to Santana. When Rachel finds out – Santana spills it in during glee rehearsal as an attempt to take Quinn down a peg during an argument – she manages to wait out the rest of glee club before running home and bursting into tears. She decides to stop being in love with Finn. But that doesn't stop her crying. Somehow it makes it worse.

That night in her dreams the person she's starting a family with shifts from Finn to someone smaller, and their children have the most gorgeous smiles. Rachel could swear she's seen it somewhere before.

* * *

_Santana's always pictured her future self as a California girl._

It's filled with sun and amazing people and freedom, she's sure, because that's what it looks like on TV. She doesn't have to think about college for another year but she secretly likes planning ahead, and when Rachel spots her coming out of Miss P's office with a UCLA prospectus she asks if that's really where she wants to go.

"_Of course it is, Berry. Could you picture me anywhere else?"_

Rachel looks like she wants to say something but seems to decide against it and says something about how she heard they have a wonderful campus. Santana already knows Rachel wants to go to New York – hell, everyone in Lima probably knows, because Rachel Berry's dreams are kind of what define her, Santana's noticed. Like when watching Rachel perform or hearing Rachel talk about glee club or about the school musical, you can kind of feel her ambition filling her words. Santana knows Rachel will probably go to Juillard or something. But she still asks.

The aspiration in Rachel's voice when she talks about her future plans in depth – she's not used to being asked, usually she just tells people for the sake if it – almost overwhelms Santana and she doesn't realise she's smiling until Rachel kind of trails off and is just staring at her mouth as if her lips had just told her Juillard burned down. When she says Rachel's name she seems to snap out of it and Santana doesn't miss the confusion in her eyes as she puts on her best show smile and finds an excuse to end the conversation before power-walking down the hallway away from Santana.

Later that night when she's flicking through the UCLA prospectus, she has to do a double take at a picture of a girl that looks just like Rachel – preppy skirts and all - standing in front of the main building on the campus. Santana can't help but think she looks out of place.

* * *

_Rachel can't wait to leave everyone in Lima behind._

She's been dreaming of New York since she knew where it was and what was there. She pictures her name in lights and a whole new circle of people who admire her talent and enjoy her company. She can just see herself up on one of those big beautiful stages filling a theatre with the songs she's loved since she was a baby. Lima just isn't for her.

But then one day during spring break she swings by the Lima Bean after her dance class – not her usual stop, but she overworked the coffee-maker at home and cannot get it to stop leaking water when she turns it on, especially if she's left something on the counter which makes her think it's deliberate, and she's decided to give up because its' passive-aggressive behaviour is starting to freak her out – and notices a familiar face behind the counter. The place is nearly empty so it actually grabs Santana's attention to hear the door open, and she aggressively greets Rachel at the counter, wearing her apron and a scowl, as if Rachel had actually called her out on it.

"Before you say anything, my parents told me I needed to get a job to pay back all the stores I shoplifted from, and this was the only place hiring. Now what do you want?"

Rachel quietly emits her order, a little shocked at Santana's greeting. And hurt, too, that after everything Santana thought that Rachel would actually be judging her for honest hard work. Rachel takes her drink to go but doesn't notice until she's almost finished it that where her name and order would usually be scrawled, there's a pretty decent drawing of a star and a note in black marker.

"_Sorry. Long day."_

Rachel's dads take her to New York for a surprise weekend trip just before school starts, to give their daughter the chance to explore where she plans to live out her days. She stops at a crowded coffee shop, and after waiting in line for 15 minutes, picks up the coffee with the misspelled name and heads back to her hotel.

Later on, for the first time since she began dreaming of New York, she finds herself day-dreaming about a coffee shop in Lima.

* * *

_Santana's not the type of girl that can be tied down._

She thinks marriage is a sham of an institution, and it's not like the kind of love that could tie you to someone forever actually exists in her world. Besides, that kind of commitment sounds exhausting. Long-term fuck-buddies sounds much more doable. Being in a real relationship with someone she actually likes? Maybe she could picture that. Soulmates she can just about – _just _– get behind. But marriage is just way too much, even considering how much she loves being the centre of attention.

She didn't expect anything less when Mr Schue announces that him and Emma want the glee club to perform at the wedding they're going to be having now that he actually managed to shoo away the hot dentist and pop the question, and while the glee club rehearse the numbers she rehearses facial expressions that don't convey how much of a sceptic she is, so that by the time they come to perform the love songs at Wemma's wedding she might be able to look like she's happy for them.

But on the actual morning of the wedding, all the little things keep going wrong for her – she feels fat and she can't find her other shoe and why won't her hair just behave - and after she overhears Mercedes make some comment about how Santana's dress looks too tight, she just decides to call it quits on the whole gig right there and head to her car.

She hears footsteps when she's taking a moment outside – she's all for driving like an ass but driving while she's this angry would probably push it into 'dangerous' – And when she hears the _"Santana? We're starting in a minute." _she turns with the _"get lost" _ready and waiting at the end of her tongue.

But she drops it and instead just stands there gaping. Because Rachel Berry just looks really beautiful in a bridesmaid's dress. Santana doesn't really hear anything Rachel says – she's a little busy still processing some things – but she follows her inside and it's only when they're halfway through their second number and Emma smiles back at her that Santana even realises she was smiling.

Santana really isn't planning to get married but she will admit (to no-one but herself) that if Rachel looks that good as a bridesmaid, she kind of can't wait to see her as a bride.

* * *

_Rachel's always dreamt of her white wedding to her leading man._

With her dads walking her down the aisle, and the big white dress and the traditional Jewish vows and the perfect vegan cake and then the marital bliss. She imagines it will be Finn.

Even with everything he's put her through recently, he's still kind of her dream guy. Especially at Mr Schuester's wedding when they're working their way through another heart-filled over-the-top love ballad duet and he's smiling at her like he wrote it himself just to sing it to her, and she starts to think that maybe, just maybe, she could give love another try.

She turns away from her leading man for a moment as she hits a high note, and thinks she catches Santana staring at her, but turns back just in time to catch Finn staring at Quinn. It kind of hurts to realise that maybe Finn's not picturing her wedding the same way she is.

But not as much as she expects it to. She finds it pretty easy to ditch the imaginary wedding plans she's been working on since freshmen year.

In all honesty, Rachel thought his suit looked a little tight.

* * *

_Babies are, in Santana's honest opinion, the most disgusting things in existence._

So when Miss Pillsbury (a.k.a. Mrs Schuester) brings their three month old daughter into a glee club meeting so the kids can meet it and fawn over it, Santana stays in her seat, pulls out her phone and doesn't even attempt to hide the fact that she'd rather be playing Angry birds than cooing over the tiny human.

Just seeing the entire glee club get all sappy over some kid that probably won't even remember them come feeding time makes her feel slightly relieved that she's on birth control. Not that she's actually needed it for the last few months, since she definitely hasn't been _getting any _recently – not from any of the guys at school (which is starting to feel more and more like a conscious decision) nor from any of the girls (wow, Brittany looks so happy with that damn baby) and for the last few weeks the only person she's thinking of when she's laying in bed with her eyes closed and her hand moving lower is-

"_Santana, would you like to hold her?"_

-holding a damn baby in her face, looking more happy and hopeful than Santana's seen her since Mr Schue's wedding.

With Rachel Berry holding the infant out to her, Santana forgets to say no. She also forgets to _not_ to genuinely smile when the baby coos and grips her shirt and Rachel lets out a small "_awww_".


	2. Change the Ways Part 2

Change The Ways

Part 2

* * *

_Santana is becoming a morning person_

The look of surprise on her mother's face when she walks into the kitchen before 9am on a Saturday is almost as satisfying as the look of confusion on Quinn's when she pulls up at 5:20am on Monday to see Santana waiting on the porch ready to go. Santana's figured out that the prompter everyone arrives at cheerleading practise the less likely it is that Sue will keep them behind, and the more time she gets to hover just outside the choir room and listen to that voice work its way through broadway classics and love anthems and sometimes even the occasional top 40 hit.

So Santana has taken to screaming ferociously at any cheerio who doesn't show up on time, because she's got places to see and people to watch and she sure as hell isn't going to be late.

Santana has yet to notice that as long as long as Rachel keeps waiting for the sound of Santana's footsteps approaching the choir room before she begins her rehearsals, she can never really be late.

So she'll rush to the choir room, just to wait outside and listen, feigning interest in the posters on the walls in case anyone walks by.

* * *

_Rachel walks straight past the choir room with her lunch on her way to the bleachers. _

She actually got invited to something. Even if it is just a lunchtime cheerios practise, it still counts. The fact that it wasn't so much an invite as Santana's panicked response to Rachel calling her out on watching her morning rehearsals is being blissfully ignored. Rachel's also trying to ignore that little smile on Santana's face when-

"_I'd love to, Santana."_

Rachel's so engrossed in watching the Cheerios (or just one of them) work through an outstanding routine that she forgets about food altogether, and doesn't realise she'd left her lunch on the bleachers until Santana runs up to her just as she's about to go into her first afternoon class and hands her the pink lunchbox without saying anything, just smirks and then jogs back down the hallway.

She opens it when she gets home and finds a scrap of paper on top of it's contents, the same sloppy handwriting as her Lima Bean coffee cup.

"_Maybe you would've had time to eat this if you hadn't spent the entire practise staring at my ass."_

Rachel blushes slightly and bites her lip as she folds the note up and puts it in her pocket. She hadn't thought Santana would _actually_ call her out on it.

* * *

_Santana Lopez steps to her left just in time for her face to catch the purple slushy._

Luckily even with the frozen drink in her eyes she can still see well enough to deliver a fantastic left hook to the jock's jaw which sends him straight into the locker beside him and then down to the floor clutching at his face. She turns on the spot after wiping the worse of it off her face, and the stunned look on Rachel's face almost makes her pause to think about what she just did. Luckily the burning in her eyes kicks in and she lets out a gasp which triggers Rachel into grabbing her emergency slushy kit from her locker, gently gripping Santana's elbow and efficiently guiding her to a bathroom.

She noticed Brittany watching in the corridor, and then noticed her absence in the restroom.

But then Rachel's telling her to_ take her top off _and her brain just gives up altogether and she doesn't notice the dry shirt Rachel's holding out to her for an incredibly awkward, silent (and, in hindsight, _super embarrassing_) thirty seconds. She quickly grabs the shirt and turns away.

"_Sorry. No idea where my mind went just now."_

"_Probably the same place you think mine goes during Cheerio's practise."_

_Did she really just...? _Santana just catches a smirk in the mirror before Rachel heads out of the door.

Well, _crap._ The fact that Rachel actually flirted with her – flirted _back –_ lifts her spirits for the rest of the day.

* * *

_Rachel has decided that being driven home is nice after a long day at school._

Even if Santana does drive like an absolute psycho, and her passenger seat road rage was just the bare minimum compared to her drivers seat road rage.

Thankfully she spares Rachel's delicate ears by delivering the majority of her expletives in fluent Spanish after Rachel asks her to calm down slightly. She doesn't know exactly what the "_Creo que eres __muy __hermosa_" she heard Santana mutter under her breath whilst glancing at Rachel when they stopped at traffic lights means, but given the tone of the Spanish she heard in the remainder of the journey, she's not entirely sure she wants to find out. Besides, it's raining, so Spanish cursing or no, Rachel is happy for the ride.

It's when Santana pulls up outside of Rachel's house and offers her a ride tomorrow too, just after Rachel accepts and leans over to kiss her on the cheek, and Santana freezes for a second, then as Rachel is about the open the door says "hey", reaches in the back for her Cheerios hoody and holds it out to her,

"_Take this, it's freezing."_

that Rachel realises how much she actually misses being in a relationship. These are all the little things Finn used to do for her.

Before she goes to bed she logs in and checks his relationship status on Facebook.

_Single._

She goes to bed happy, but bad dreams make her restless.

* * *

_Santana swipes angrily at the tears running quickly down her cheeks._

Because when Finn marches up to her in the corridor and just outright calls her a lesbian – _well, there goes that coming out speech I had prepared_ – she can almost deal with that. And when he tells her to back off Rachel, that's nearly okay too. But mostly because she sees Rachel talking to him later on and smiling up at him as if he had rainbows coming from his face, and maybe she can't stand to lose another one to another stupid fucking jock.

She gets a text later from Rachel asking why she missed glee practise.

Her reply is nothing but evasive, hoping to avoid talking about anything to do with _him._

"_Sorry you had to walk home."_

"_It's okay, Finn gave me a ride :)"_

Santana turns her phone off for the next two days.

* * *

_All Rachel wants to do is wipe that stupid smile right off Finn's face._

Because she had just heard from Tina what he said to Santana, and Rachel's absolutely livid that she didn't find out about it before agreeing to go out with him on Friday.

But it's too late to cancel the date, and at least it'll give her the chance to talk to him about it. Rachel didn't get the chance to speak to Santana about it before or after she found out because between _not _being around during Rachel's morning rehearsals, disappearing into the stock room whenever Rachel shows up at the Lima bean, and apparently skipping glee practises completely, Rachel thinks Santana might be avoiding her. She could _kill_ Finn.

Rachel gets somewhat enthusiastic about explaining to Finn why what he did is wrong, and she kind of hopes the expression he has on his face when he drops her off later on just stays there. People like him deserve to be miserable. She really can't believe him.

"_I don't get why you care, Rachel, she's just some slutty cheerleader. She used to give you hell just for wearing animal sweaters."_

Rachel sends Santana a text before she goes to bed.

"_Finn is such an idiot."_

On Monday Rachel can hear footsteps hovering outside the choir room as she goes through her warm-ups, and picks the lyric sheet to her left. When she reaches the end of her rap-less acapella cover of Pink's 'Perfect' she thinks she hears a sniff before the footsteps shuffle away.

* * *

_Santana's never worked harder on an assignment in her life._

But when Mr. Schue once again tries to inflict 'duets' on the Glee club and says the pairs will be chosen at random, he turns it into a competition for a voucher for Breadstix, which Santana definitely likes the sound of.

That's what she's doing it for. If anyone asks why she's been spending lunchtimes shut up with Rachel in the choir room rehearsing, or why they catch her humming under her breath, or why her schoolwork is littered with little notes in the margins - "_start acapella?_" _"first chorus = R, 2__nd__ = me, 3__rd__ = both_" "_lower part for 2__nd__ verse?_" - that's what she'll tell them. It's for that voucher.

But when Santana picked Rachel's name out of the hat she heard the small giggles and "_tough break, Lopez._" from the fellow glee club members and she forgot about the voucher for a minute because Santana Lopez is _furious _that after all this time – two damn years of being in glee club together - the single most talented person in Glee club – hey, in the entire damn_ state_ – is still at the bottom of the barrel socially, even when amongst people that are supposed to be her friends.

And she's decided to turn the phrase "if you can't beat them, join them" on its' head because for the last few months Santana has been carrying around this guilt about the way she treated Rachel, especially now that they're getting into some wacky kind of friendship, and so when the name she picks gets that reaction, Santana actually feels physically sick because that used to be her and she used to be one of the worst ones and even _she _treats Rachel well now.

So she's doing as much as she physically can to push that right back into their faces, by winning that damn voucher. But it's not enough just to win. They have to give the best damn performance Glee club has ever seen because these kids need to see that Rachel Berry is a complete star. Something Santana wouldn't be panicking about if these were solo performances, but these are duets so Santana gets that to make Rachel shine so bright the glee kids go blind, Santana needs to bring her A-game.

But if Rachel asks why she's been working so hard -

"_I just really want that voucher. Hey, can we go over that verse again, I think I got some harmonies."_

* * *

_Rachel's pretty sure she broke every single speed limit on her way to the hospital._

And who uses seatbelts anyway?

Her. But barely. Because Quinn just sent her a text telling her to pick Santana up from the hospital and Rachel's brain is in overdrive with the horrific possibilities about what might've put her there in the first place.

It's just a sprained ankle from a poor landing in cheerios practise. Santana's more concerned about how coach is going to bitch her out for the sloppiness in her failed dismount than she is about the injury itself. But that's okay, because Rachel's got that covered. Which is why when Santana says she knows how Rachel could make her feel better, she replies straight away,

"_Anything."_

And that is why when Santana leans over and connects their lips, Rachel kisses her right back. She wants to help her feel better, after all.

* * *

_Santana looks Leroy and Hiram Berry straight in the eye one at a time before taking a deep breath and explaining herself._

It's not like they're going to judge her, because they're gay, so that would make them hypocrites.

Rachel has tendency to ramble on, as everyone in the entire school seems to have noticed. But Santana's figured out that if you listen, you learn things. Like how much Rachel kind of likes her. And how Rachel likes traditional things. Asking her fathers for their blessing is traditional, right?

They don't make it easy for her. They appear stern. They keep referring to Rachel as their "_baby/angel/princess_" and at one point Santana almost feels bad for asking because, wow, she does not feel like a good enough person to be asking about dating their daughter.

But it's when Santana gets half-way through the speech she had planned – and then preceeded to totally stumble over because even when she got her first solo glee performance and her parents came to watch her sing she has _never_ been so nervous in her life – she pauses to take a breath and get her head together when she hears it. The restrained chuckles. Which quickly transform into apologetic laughter, because they were ready to say yes before she was even ready to ask.

"_Santana, I'm so sorry we're putting you through this – Leroy, get the poor girl a glass of water! - Yes, of course you ca__n date our daughter. Lord knows you've earned it."_

Santana is torn between mortified and just absolutely relieved, and maybe a little dazed as Hiram Berry pulls her into a hug. She would make a joke about killing them, but she doesn't want to make a bad impression on her (nearly) girlfriend's parents.

* * *

_Rachel wonders how she ever though she truly knew the pain of being in love._

Since she's not the most social person, gossip takes a while to reach her, but it always gets there in the end. Brittany broke up with Artie and that's totally okay. Until Brittany is flirting with Santana. And then it hurts.

She didn't hang around long enough to see Santana tell Brittany to stop, and when she walks into glee slightly late that afternoon she doesn't know that the reason people are staring at her is something to do with her name falling from Santana's lips earlier that day.

But she realises that maybe she's not the only one feeling the pain of being in love when Santana steps up to the front of the choir room and delivers a performance so moving that every girl and a couple of the guys are crying. Well, every girl besides Rachel. Who still doesn't know Santana's pain isn't from being in love with_ Brittany._

Love begins to inch its way back over to Rachel's original – though apparently not entirely accurate - definition when Santana corners her after everyone else has gone home and kisses her up against the piano while muttering apologies. Rachel's obscenely genuine and oh so ecstatic laughter takes them both by surprise, but it doesn't take long for Santana to join in, looking into Rachel's eyes and knowing that they're both totally feeling it. Santana Lopez is in love with Rachel Berry - which is a complete relief, because Rachel Berry loves her back.

"_Will you be my girlfriend?"_

"_Really, Santana, you couldn't have asked that before your hands got under my sweater?"_

* * *

_Santana fully embraces her new role as the big spoon._

Rachel's never known any other way. After they get ready for bed and pull silly faces at each other in the bathroom mirror while brushing their teeth – Rachel wins, she always does, but Santana still gets the sympathy prize when she tries to laugh and has a choking fit on the toothpaste – they climb into bed and snuggle up, Santana waiting for Rachel to get settled before resting her hand on her hip, and Rachel pulling it round her waist like she usually does.

They'll usually stay like that for the whole night but if Rachel's got something on her mind she gets restless and-

"_Ow."_

"_Wha- Oh God, Santana, I'm so sorry, I was asleep!"_

-this probably won't be the last time Santana takes an elbow to the face. Santana tells Rachel that it's no big deal when she tries to insist on an ice pack.

She just makes all the cheerios that snigger at the black eye run extra windsprints, keeping an eye (her good eye) on them while she's sat on the bleachers letting Rachel snuggle into her and picking at their lunches.

* * *

_Rachel realises that with the right person, the right time can be any time._

With Santana. Now. As their kisses become more passionate than playful while they're sat on the sofa in Rachel's living room watching Funny Girl (Santana's kind of whipped) and Rachel stops them and whispers I love you, and Santana smiles and says it back. Rachel turns the movie off, stands up and reaches for Santana's hand before leading her upstairs.

Santana is slow and gentle and doesn't push Rachel faster or further than she wants to go. It would have been worth waiting for but it happened today and Rachel's definitely okay with that.

Afterwards Santana holds her, peppers her with kisses and tells her she loves her in every language she knows (_all two of them_) and Rachel feels so perfect that she could just cry.

Actually, she _is _crying, something she wasn't aware of until Santana's face turns severely anxious and she starts asking

"_baby, what's wrong?" _

and that just makes Rachel want to cry harder because Santana actually _cares._

Rachel wakes up to sunlight streaming through her window and panics when she notices she's alone. Before Santana opens her bedroom door ass-first carrying what looks like an entire breakfast buffet and some coffee on a tray and then Rachel's trying not to cry again.

* * *

_Santana finds herself daydreaming of New York._

Well, it does have some great colleges. And Santana's not the type to deal with long distance – emotionally, sure, because Rachel's definitely the one. But she has needs, and Rachel has this thing she does with her tongue.

When she calls Rachel to tell her she got in to NYU, there's a pause before Rachel finds her voice.

"_You applied to NYU?"_

"_And I got in! I'm coming to New York!"_

"_But you didn't tell me you even-"_

"_Rachel, shut up and come over here so we can start looking for apartments online."_

* * *

_Rachel realised that going to New York was much easier when she brought the best part of Lima with her._

Seeing her girlfriend smiling at her from the audience on opening night gives Rachel a strange sense of closure. Like her dreams have all just come true so Rachel can stop hating Lima now. She can just move on and forget it. She's got bigger and more beautiful things to focus on.

Like how she needs to remember to tease Santana for crying during Rachel's spectacular musical finale – Rachel cried while she was singing it, but that's kind of her thing. Except Rachel forgets all about that until the next day because she walks into her dressing room to find the biggest bouquet of roses she's seen in her life, and her gorgeous girlfriend leaning up against her vanity mirror wearing the proudest smile Rachel's ever seen anyone she wasn't directly related to aim her way.

Rachel thought she would pass out laughing that one time back in high school when she actually let herself picture any of her glee teammates choosing to come and watch her perform showtunes – after all the ones she got through in Glee there weren't many left they hadn't already seen anyway – but when she told Santana not to come to opening night, her girlfriend pretty much just kept brushing it off.

"_What if I mess up? I don't want you to see that."_

"_You'll be perfect. And I wanna see that."_

Not that she's not glad to see her now, though.

"_But honestly, Santana, was it good?"_

"_Well, I hate to say I told you so, but..."_

* * *

_Santana spots the ring in the window when she's walking back from the deli on her lunch break._

And then she kind of kicks herself because honestly, there is nothing she wants more than to stay with Rachel for the rest of her life and this seems like the perfect way to tell her that, and she can't believe she didn't think of doing this sooner because she's pretty sure Rachel's been ready for a while now and Santana was coming around to the idea by the end of their _sophomore year, _so it takes her all of two seconds of hesitation before she dashes into the store to buy it.

The look on Rachel's face when Santana drops to one knee and pulls out the little black velvet box is both the stuff of dreams and nightmares.

The look on her face when Santana's telling her in disgustingly sweet detail about how much she really loves her was absolutely adorable.

But the look on her face right before she says yes – that second immediately before she says it, where Rachel knows that she's going to marry Santana and is about to tell so her by saying _that one word_ -

"_Yes!"_

- is Santana's favourite.

* * *

_Rachel can't wait to say "I do" to the girl of her dreams._

She almost just wants to tell all of the bridesmaids working on her hair and make-up to just stop. Santana's seen her first thing in the morning, she knows what her worst looks like and still loves her so really all of this hassle is just getting in the way of Rachel becoming Mrs. Berry-Lopez.

Then Rachel really has to reel in her urge to _powerwalk_ down the aisle. Especially when she locks eyes with her fiancé stood at the alter and just _knows_ that every day after this one will be the happiest of her life.

Once she gets there, Rachel has to bite her tongue to stop herself from telling the Rabi to _get on with it_ and Santana's smirking and squeezing her hands because she can tell exactly what Rachel wants to do. Hey, Santana's probably on the exact same page.

But then before she knows it the vows are spoken and her Dads are crying and she may now kiss the bride and everyone is cheering and she's leading her _wife _out of the church and they're grinning like idiots.

They're swaying to some bluesy love song – performed to perfection by Mercedes - for their first dance and Santana leans in to tell Rachel how beautiful she looks in a wedding dress - for what she thinks won't be the last time that day, she's already said it half a dozen times in the last two minutes (but Rachel will _never_ get tired of hearing it) – and Rachel pecks her on the lips in response because her face just really hurts from smiling.

Being this happy is so _exhausting_. And now she has to _get used to it._

* * *

_When Berry-Lopez Jr. kicks for the first time, Santana actually starts crying._

They're lounging on the couch, both rubbing Rachel's stomach and whispering hello's and I love you's to the child they can't wait to meet in person.

She can tell from the ultrasound – Rachel didn't want to know the gender but knew Santana would want to, so when the OB left the office Rachel asked Santana if she could get her a drink of water just so she could have an excuse to run after the doctor and ask without Rachel present; Santana still thinks Rachel really wanted the water but forgets how Rachel didn't complain when she came back empty handed looking slightly teary-eyed and totally overjoyed – that the baby boy is going to be the most handsome, beautiful, incredible, wonderful human on the face of the earth.

Because it has the most beautiful, incredible, wonderful woman on earth as a mother.

Santana's really great with the baby, from the second he arrives in the hospital it's like someone flicked a switch and suddenly her _entire world_ revolves around him - _Rachel _is her entire world, so that seems pretty accurate, because if Santana thought Rachel was beautiful as a bride then she is just _glorious _as a mother. He just has the most gorgeous smile. When he burps up on them they laugh it off and when he cries in the middle of the night they're both there in an instant and when he says his first word-

"_Mamma!"_

- they share it -

"_I think he meant you."_

"_I think he meant both of us."_

- because they're doing this together.

And it's definitely not where either of them thought they might be back when they were barely _teammates_.

But now they're a family_. _And they never want _that _to change.

* * *

.

* * *

Hello! If you are reading this, thank you for making it to the end of the story (or for just scrolling down, maybe? Well done you!) and especially for clicking it at all because wow that summary was so pretentious! I'm terrible at writing them, my apologies. But anyways...

I hope you enjoyed it.

I started writing it 6 months ago and only just went back to it (and reread it and realised I had actually been meaning to finish and publish this one. In April. Whoops!) so if the writing style jumped a bit awkwardly or if I missed something in continuity I apologise!

Also, "_Creo que eres __muy __hermosa" _supposedly (google)translates as "I think you're very beautiful".

Feel free to drop a review and let me know what you thought (or if you spot any typos because I saw a few when I first read over this any now I'm correcting it and I can't find half of them). But you don't have to. I always forget to review so I feel a bit rude asking. Either way I hope it was an enjoyable read and that you have a nice week :-)

Tataa for now!


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